Common mental conditions like depression affect our cognitive abilities, most notably working memory and attention, and can contribute to the difficulty of coping and being effective in our every day jobs and life. Depressed individuals must engage more brainpower to achieve the same results as someone without depression. This places heavy demands on the brain’s resources and may result in progressive brain exhaustion. This can lead to noticeable cognitive deficits.
This year the theme of the World Mental Health Day on October 10th is “Mental Health in Primary Care Medicine: Enhancing Treatment and Promoting Mental Health“. Through emphasizing the benefits of enhancing mental health in primary care medical settings, notable changes can be made in the early recognition and treatment of common conditions like depression. We applaud the work of the World Federation of Mental Health in promoting the importance of early detection and treatment. The economic and social costs of not doing so are enormous.

The World Federation for Mental Health started World Mental Health Day in 1992 with the aim to promote public awareness of mental health and illness. To find out more about World Mental Health Day, click here…

Today - World Alzheimer’s Day, September 21, is a day when the Alzheimer’s Association and other organizations around the globe unite  efforts to raise awareness about the disease and its impact on our families, communities and nations. World Alzheimer’s Day was first launched on September 21, 1994 by ADI.  The fact that 35M people today are living with Alzheimer’s Disease (a 10% increase in just the last 4 years!) should be cause for alarm and, more importantly, cause for action on the part of our health care and health insurance industry leadership, our government elected officials and all of us as individuals. You can read more about Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures and how you can get involved to make a difference in the fight here

The Alzheimer’s Association organizes  Memory Walks across the country to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s research and education. It a great way to join others, get exercise,  and walk for the cause. Learn more  Here.

The 5th annual Games for Health Conference was held in Boston.  It was co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, from whom HAPPYneuron was a proud award recipient last year. I presented about enabling better tools for professionally guided Cognitive Remediation programs. The slides can be found here…..